Fuse box worries. Things melting

[Jan Steinman]

[montanasurfer]

[do.dah]

[montanasurfer]

[Red Ryder]

Hate to state the obvious but…
Simply replacing the damaged multi-pin connector will be a band-aid. Determining the original cause of the problem (e.g., high wattage bulbs, poor ground, improper placement of relays) is important to avoid another meltdown in the future. Start with a survey of any non-factory wiring or connections related to the headlight circuit
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“Most everyone’s mad here. You may have noticed I am not quite all there myself.” — Cheshire Cat, Adventures of Alice in Wonderland

“Scarlett” — 1990 Vanagon Carat Wolfsburg Edition (Tornado Red)
“Nigel” — 1999 Jaguar XK8 convertible (Alpine Green Metallic)

[oceanair]

Just get LED bulbs that match the original wattage and don't overload the wiring... plenty of lumens...
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84 Vanagon Pop Top Conversion from Tin Top, 1970 Ghia - all sweet rides! Love em!
Previous: Green 72 Tin Top, White 72 Westy, Blue 64 Beetle, Yellow 71 Squareback, 2014 Jetta TDI Wagon - wish I could have them all back!

[Red Ryder]

[jlrftype7]

[montanasurfer]

[Wildthings]

Even with a headlight relay you need to protect the wiring with fuses or circuit breakers. A relay is not a panacea.

[crazyvwvanman]

These relay kits were a response to common failures of the 3 switches in the original headlight wiring path. They do what they were designed to do, take those 3 switches out of the main current path. As I have already stated, a kit with a more comprehensive approach would be nice. That is a bit more complicated but is what I have done on some of my vans. Go for it.

Mark

[Butcher]

[MarkWard]

Never was a fan of the sandwich style fuse boxes. I was surprised to learn that the headlight relay kits only took the load off of the head light switch. I would have thought the kits would have included moving the load lead to a better suited location too.

[Wildthings]

For pre '86 Vanagons, buy fuses that have brass contacts verses zinc ones and you will have less corrosion and thus a better contact between the fuses and the contacts on the fuse box. Also use dielectric grease on the ends of the fuses. For the high speed fan circuit using a modern spade style fuse in an line fuse holder is a good idea, but be sure your crimps are A-1.

[crazyvwvanman]

There are 4 headlight fuses in the panel, 2 for high left and right and 2 for low beams left and right.
Lets talk about just the highs since that is the problem area.

High beam power comes into the panel on B22, splits into 2 paths and each path get a fuse. Then each fused path has a wire out, a left side high beam wire and a right side high beam wire.

Fuse #9 = right side highs out on fuse panel pin C16 and wire is white with black stripe (also out pin A28 wire for dash high beam indicator)
Fuse #10 = left side highs out on fuse panel pin C17 and wire is white

So of course you can bypass the stock fuse panel completely but you need to split the relay output wire that used to feed B22 into 2 paths left/right and add fuses. Then also connect one of them to the wire for the dash led for high beam indicator.

(for vans that don't yet have serious damage to the stock fuse panel there are better ways than above)

Mark

[crazyvwvanman]

Your underlying assumption is mistaken. The relay kits weren't designed to take the load out of the fuse box. The kits were designed to remove the main load from the much more failure prone ignition switch and headlight switches. The relay kits do this very effectively. Even vans with stock bulbs suffer from these switch failures but upgraded vans more so.

You can die from a head wound while wearing a bullet proof vest but that doesn't make bullet proof vests useless at all.

Mark

[Butcher]

Some of this is difficult for me to understand but what I see is a relay that is not installed properly. Like someone pointed out, the relay is suppose to take the load out of the fuse box and therefore prevent issues like this. It appears the way you have it routed makes no sense. A quick Google search may make it easier to understand what you did wrong.

As for bad grounds and heat, bad connections on a high current circuit will cause heat at the connection, not the entire circuit. So if you had a bad connection at the ground terminal, it could melt the insulation at that terminal. It certainly would slow down the electrons and the consumers on that circuit would operate slower/dimmer.

Typically a bad ground connection would not cause a fuse box connector to burn.

[bsrad]

[crazyvwvanman]

The suggestion to power the relays from another source has merit but in this case it wouldn't have helped since his melted pin B22 is AFTER the added relays. Powering the relay from another source wouldn't change this.

If someone wants to get power from the 50 amp fused side of the high speed fan relay I would say to move only the high beams to this source. That way if the fuse were to blow there would still be low beams available. It is the 4 bulb high watt high beam circuit that really has the issues and exceeds double or triple the amps of the low beam circuit.

My approach on my own vans has been to remove the headlight bulb power from the stock fuse/relay panel entirely, with relays and a small fuse panel mounted elsewhere. This has to be done safely and with some thought for long term reliability. A real kit for this would be nice and the same kit could work on both early and late vans.

Mark

[AtlasShrugged]

Pull your #30 12v power for the headlamp relays outside the fusebox.

Taking 12v for the headlamp relays from inside the fusebox will fry the wires.

If you have a later model Vanagon with A/C..a handy spot to grab your #30 12v is the 50 amp radiator fan blade fuse above the fusebox.

Wire in the #30 12v on the downside/fused end of the fuse so if there is a fault the 50 amp fuse will blow.

Downside is if the 50 amp fuse blows..no radiator fan.

The odds of the very high speed fan coming on with maximum draw, at night with the headlamps on is very low.

Or..you can use the 12v at that 50 amp blade fuse and then install an inline fuse for the headlamps #30 power wire too..if you are running high wattage bulbs..use a 40 amp inline fuse.

Or..run a wire from the battery, fused, to the #30 headlamp relays.